Sunday Bird’s Eye View Schedule for 7/31

THU 7/28 (10:45PM) — Below is the final schedule for this Sun 7/31. We have quite a few bye requests due to the Tahoe Japanese tournament, and other reasons for being out of town. Please be reminded that when these things come up, I try my best to ensure that your oncourt experience is still the best money can buy; that includes playing against a quality opponent rather than just advancing in the bracket via forfeit. However, this must be carefully balanced by honoring the Dream League code, which is to put good faith efforts towards abiding by the registration guidelines, which specifically said not to take vacation until September. I’m sure you understand the give-and-take involved here.

Okay, so back to the schedule. I’m currently posting all the playoff bracket updates (unless you are, say, AAA-SJ which is in the first week of playoffs so we haven’t posted a bracket yet, but the Standings page has been updated with the seeds). You may find these updates by going to our homepage — just click on the white-on-blue “dreamleague bay area” graphic at the top of any page on this site — and scrolling down to the list of recently posted articles. I will place these Playoff Bracket articles underneath the Bird’s Eye pages for Saturday and Sunday.

So without further adieu, here are the major division-by-division playoff bracket issues for this Sun 7/31…

Due to the reduction in games remaining, BGCE and WKRC gyms are not needed for 7/31.

AL/NL: Rangers need a bye, so the Last Losers Bracket Game will be played and get the benefit of not being forced to play the Rangers on the same day. That means we push out the championship to 8/7 and, if the Rangers lose on 8/7, we’ll play the repeat championship on 8/14.

AAA-SF: Half the teams remaining will be in Tahoe, therefore we’ll just take a bye this Sun 7/31.

AAA-OAK: Marinlossal is in Tahoe so will take a bye this Sun 7/31 along with their opponent, of course, Oakboyz. To balance out, Marinlossal is forced to play in Oakboyz’s timeframe next Sun 8/7. Pablo vs Shockers will still occur on 7/31. The benefit of doing that is that the winner of Pablo/Shock isn’t forced to play a doubleheader on 7/31; instead the winner plays on 8/7. Meanwhile, Pure vs Yack escaped a tipoff conflict and will play on 7/31, then take the 8/7 bye.

6FT-SJ: Basketballs Of Fury has a bye because they are the highest seed of the three in the Losers Bracket. That will leave us with two Losers Bracket teams, plus the two losers of the Winners Bracket. This will allow for a mini-final-four the next round on 8/7 in the Losers Bracket.

6FT-SF: So with the issues last week, we have the Winners Bracket Falcons vs Ed O’Banners finally playing this Sun 7/31, while Trainwreck vs Dynasty and the winner of that vs Hangover occurs in the Losers Bracket. Trainwreck will conform to Dynasty’s timeframe. I understand that Hangover (or really, the winner of COG/Hangover from last week) has an advantage, but there was little I could do about it considering all of the complications from last week.

6FT-OAK: Eastbay Elite has been expelled due to their third transgression with our usual “Pleasantville” league operations. The first was bringing a player over 6’0″ early in the season. The second was on 7/24 when I had to forfeit them for using a player, who incidentally ended up with about 6 made treys, who had not played a game in the regular season. And this past week was for unsportsmanlike conduct both on the floor and in the stands, not to mention more complaints about a player or two possibly being over 6’0″. It was just too much for me to handle and I was ending up having phone calls with my personnel (refs, scorekeepers, gym directors, and other eyewitnesses) which would take up 3-4 hours of my time. As a result of EB Elite’s departure, Dream 6FT automatically advances against the Decepticons again.

A/R-SJ: Similar to the 6FT-SJ situation above, in a 7-team double-elim bracket, the highest seed this week among the three Losers Bracket teams gets a bye. This is so that we’ll have two left in the Losers Bracket joined by the two losers from the Winners Bracket next round, creating a mini-final-four which enables us to whittle four teams down to one in one day.

A/R-SF: Just like with AAA-SF, half the field is in Tahoe or otherwise out of town, so we’ll just postpone the entire division.

REC-AM (Upper): While researching the bye request for Relapse, it turned out that WWWD could also use a bye, so I went ahead and implemented a bye for their playoff bracket areas. However, I kept the Oakland Warriors vs No Chance game, which means the winner will not be subjected to a doubleheader. This obviously creates an advantage for the winner of Warriors/NoChance on 8/7, and a disadvantage for SULD Kryptonite if they beat Relapse (Relapse should gladly accept their consequence of a doubleheader if they win since we are honoring their bye request). So, I was put in a difficult position to make this decision, and I decided that this was the “lesser of multiple evils”. Apologies to SULD Kryptonite, who must take a bye this Sun 7/31 along with Relapse.

REC+AM: Only Cereal Killers and Hype remain in the Losers Bracket because they were the only ones to have lost and maintained double-elimination status (finished the 7-game regular season at 4-3 or better).

SCHEDULING ISSUES FOR 7/31
– a/r-oak Wolf Pack first game of potential DH slightly earlier, no other slots left
– rec-pm Rawkats first game of potential DH slightly earlier, no other slots left
– rec+pm Tone Team 3p+ midpoint rule enforced (5p+ timeframe too tight)
– a/r-sj Garage is at latest available timeslot given other teams’ available windows